Contemporary history is a subset of modern history which describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present.[1] The term "contemporary history" has been in use at least since the early 19th century.[2]

In the first half of the 20th century, the world saw a series of great conflagrations, World War I and World War II. Near the end of the first world war, there were a series of Russian Revolutions and a Russian Civil War. In between the world wars, the 1920s saw a great rise in prosperity where much of the world saw progress and new technology, but this was soon ended by the Great Depression. During this time, the League of Nations was formed to deal with global issues, but failed to garner enough support by the leading powers, and a series of crises once again led the world into another epoch of violence.

The Cold War began in 1947 and lasted until 1991. The Space Age was concurrent with this time, encompassing the activities related to the Space Race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events. Pax Americana is an appellation applied to the historical concept of relative liberal peace in the Western world, resulting from the preponderance of power enjoyed by the United States of America after the end of World War II in 1945.

The post-1945 world experienced the establishment of many new states. Throughout the post-1945 period, the Cold War was expressed through military coalitions, espionage, weapons development, invasions, propaganda, and competitive technological development. The Soviet Union created the Eastern Bloc of countries that it occupied, annexing some as Soviet Socialist Republics and maintaining others as satellite states that would later form the Warsaw Pact. The United States and various Western European countries began a containment policy for communism and forged alliances to this end, including NATO. The conflict included defense spending, a conventional and nucleararms race, and various proxy wars; the two superpowers never fought one another directly.

A Visualization of the various routes through a portion of the Internet. Partial map of the Internet based in 2005.

The Information Age or Information Era, also commonly known as the Age of the Computer, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously. The idea is heavily linked to the concept of a Digital Age or Digital Revolution, and carries the ramifications of a shift from traditional industry that the Industrial Revolution brought through industrialization, to an economy based around the manipulation of information. The period is generally said to have begun in the latter half of the 20th century, though the particular date varies. The term began its use around the late 1980s and early 1990s, and has been used up to the present with the availability of the Internet.

During the late 1990s, both Internet directories and search engines were popular—Yahoo! and Altavista (both founded 1995) were the respective industry leaders. By late 2001, the directory model had begun to give way to search engines, tracking the rise of Google (founded 1998), which had developed new approaches to relevancy ranking. Directory features, while still commonly available, became after-thoughts to search engines. Database size, which had been a significant marketing feature through the early 2000s (decade), was similarly displaced by emphasis on relevancy ranking, the methods by which search engines attempt to sort the best results first.

The United States responded to the 11 September 2001 attacks by launching a "Global War on Terrorism", invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, who had harbored al-Qaeda terrorists, and enacting the Patriot Act. Many other countries also strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers. The 'Global War on Terrorism' is the military, political, legal and ideological conflict against Islamic terrorism and Islamic militants since the 2001 attacks.

The War in Afghanistan began in late 2001 and was launched by the United States with the United Kingdom, and NATO-led, UN authorized ISAF in response to the 11 September attacks. The aim of the invasion was to find the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and other high-ranking al-Qaeda members and put them on trial, to destroy the whole organization of al-Qaeda, and to remove the Taliban regime which supported and gave safe harbor to al-Qaeda. The Bush administration policy and the Bush Doctrine stated forces would not distinguish between terrorist organizations and nations or governments that harbor them. Two military operations in Afghanistan are fighting for control over the country. Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) is a United States combat operation involving some coalition partners and operating primarily in the eastern and southern parts of the country along the Pakistan border. The second operation is the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was established by the UN Security Council at the end of 2001 to secure Kabul and the surrounding areas. NATO assumed control of ISAF in 2003.

The multinational infantry actions, with additional ground forces supplied by the Afghan Northern Alliance, and aerial bombing campaign removed the Taliban from power, but Taliban forces have since regained some strength.[9] The war has been less successful in achieving the goal of restricting al-Qaeda's movement than anticipated.[10] Since 2006, Afghanistan has seen threats to its stability from increased Taliban-led insurgent activity, record-high levels of illegal drug production,[11][12] and a fragile government with limited control outside of Kabul.[13] At the end of 2008, the war had been unsuccessful in capturing Osama bin Laden and tensions have grown between the United States and Pakistan due to incidents of Taliban fighters crossing the Pakistan border while being pursued by coalition troops.

U.S. soldiers take cover during a firefight with insurgents in the Al Doura section of Baghdad 7 March 2007

In the beginning of the 2000s (decade), there was a global rise in prices in commodities and housing, marking an end to the commodities recession of 1980–2000. The US mortgage-backed securities, which had risks that were hard to assess, were marketed around the world and a broad based credit boom fed a global speculative bubble in real estate and equities. The financial situation was also affected by a sharp increase in oil and food prices. The collapse of the American housing bubble caused the values of securities tied to real estate pricing to plummet thereafter, damaging financial institutions.[33][34] The late-2000s recession, a severe economic recession which began in the United States in 2007,[35] was sparked by the outbreak of a modern financial crisis.[36] The modern financial crisis was linked to earlier lending practices by financial institutions and the trend of securitization of American real estate mortgages.[37] The emergence of Sub-prime loan losses exposed other risky loans and over-inflated asset prices.

countries by real GDP growth rate in 2014.(Countries in brown were in recession.)

From late 2009 European sovereign-debt crisis, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed among investors concerning rising government debt levels across the globe together with a wave of downgrading of government debt of certain European states. Concerns intensified early 2010 and thereafter making it difficult or impossible for sovereigns to re-finance their debts. On 9 May 2010, Europe's Finance Ministers approved a rescue package worth €750 billion aimed at ensuring financial stability across Europe. The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) was a special purpose vehicle financed by members of the eurozone to combat the European sovereign debt crisis. In October 2011 eurozone leaders agreed on another package of measures designed to prevent the collapse of member economies. The three most affected countries, Greece, Ireland and Portugal, collectively account for six percent of eurozone's gross domestic product (GDP). In 2012, Eurozone finance ministers reached an agreement on a second €130-billion Greek bailout. In 2013, the European Union agreed to a €10 billion economic bailout for Cyprus.

The third millennium is the third period of one thousand years. As this millennium is in progress, only its first decade, the 2000s (decade), can be the subject of the conventional historian's attention. The remaining part of the 21st century and longer-term trends are researched by futures studies, an approach that uses various models and several methods (such as "forecasting" and "backcasting"). Ever since the invention of history, people have searched for "lessons" that might be drawn from its study, on the principle that to understand the past is potentially to control the future.[41] A famous quote by George Santayana has it that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."[42]Arnold J. Toynbee, in his monumental Study of History, sought regularities in the rise and fall of civilizations.[43] In a more popular vein, Will and Ariel Durant devoted a 1968 book, The Lessons of History, to a discussion of "events and comments that might illuminate present affairs, future possibilities... and the conduct of states."[44] Discussions of history's lessons often tend to an excessive focus on historic detail or, conversely, on sweeping historiographic generalizations.[45]

Future Studies takes as one of its important attributes (epistemological starting points) the ongoing effort to analyze alternative futures. This effort includes collecting quantitative and qualitative data about the possibility, probability, and desirability of change. The plurality of the term "futures" in futurology denotes the rich variety of alternative futures, including the subset of preferable futures (normative futures), that can be studied.

Practitioners of the discipline previously concentrated on extrapolating present technological, economic or social trends, or on attempting to predict future trends, but more recently they have started to examine social systems and uncertainties and to build scenarios, question the worldviews behind such scenarios via the causal layered analysis method (and others) create preferred visions of the future, and use backcasting to derive alternative implementation strategies. Apart from extrapolation and scenarios, many dozens of methods and techniques are used in futures research.[46]

At the end of the 20th century, the world was at a major crossroads. Throughout the century, more technological advances had been made than in all of preceding history. Computers, the Internet, and other modern technology radically altered daily lives. Increased globalization, specifically Americanization, had occurred. While not necessarily a threat, it has sparked anti-Western and anti-American sentiment in parts of the developing world, especially the Middle East. The English language has become a leading global language, with people who did not speak it becoming increasingly disadvantaged.

A trend connecting economic and political events in North America, Asia, and the Middle East is the rapidly increasing demand for fossil fuels, which, along with fewer new petroleum finds, greater extraction costs (see peak oil), and political turmoil, saw the price of gas and oil soar ~500% between 2000 and 2005. In some places, especially in Europe, gas could be $5 a gallon, depending on the currency. Less influential, but omnipresent, is the debate on Turkey's participation in the European Union. New urbanism and urban revival continue to be forces in urban planning in the United States.[47] However, evidence shows that growth of American suburbs still outpaces urban growth.[48]

First of all, wealth is concentrated among the G8 and Western industrialized nations, along with several Asian nations and OPEC countries. The richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000 and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total.[49] The bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth.[49] Another study found that the richest 2% own more than half of global household assets.[50] Despite this, the distribution has been changing quite rapidly in the direction of greater concentration of wealth.[51] Nevertheless, powerful nations with large economies and wealthy individuals can improve the rapidly evolving economies of the Third World. However, developing countries face many challenges, including the scale of the task to be surmounted, rapidly growing populations, and the need to protect the environment, and the cost that goes along with facing such challenges.

Secondly, disease threatened to destabilize many regions of the world. New viruses such as SARS, West Nile, and Bird Flu continued to spread quickly and easily. In poor nations, malaria and other diseases affected the majority of the population. Millions were infected with HIV, the virus which causes AIDS. The virus was becoming an epidemic in southern Africa. Even problems with non-infectious diseases has been raised in the world – innovations in the technology in the western world, by the 1900th spread of sedentary lifestyle where TV, computers, fast food and elevator has caused obesity become a global challenge. This causes challenges on the global economy since obesity is linked to a broad kind of diseases. This problem has even been influenced previously famine parts of the world where obesity lives beside poverty.

Terrorism, dictatorship, and the spread of nuclear weapons are also issues requiring immediate attention. Dictators, such as the one in North Korea of 2013,[52] continue to possess nuclear weapons. The fear exist that not only are terrorists already attempting to get nuclear weapons, but that they have already obtained them.

Various emerging technologies, the recent developments and convergences in various fields of technology, hold possible future impacts. Emerging technologies cover various cutting-edge developments in the emergence and convergence of technology, including transportation, information technology, biotechnology, robotics and applied mechanics, and material science. Their status and possible effects involve controversy over the degree of social impact or the viability of the technologies. Though, these represent new and significant developments within a field; converging technologies represent previously distinct fields which are in some way moving towards stronger inter-connection and similar goals.

NASA announced in 2011 that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured photographic evidence of possible liquid water on Mars during warm seasons. On 6 August 2012, the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity, the most elaborate Martian exploration vehicle to date, landed on Mars. After the WMAP observations of the cosmic microwave background, information was released in 2011 of the work done by the Planck Surveyor, estimating the age of the Universe to 13.8 billion years old (a 100 million years older than previously thought). Another technological advancement came in 2012 with European physicists statistically demonstrating the existence of the Higgs boson.[64]

^For example, Edinburgh review, Volume 12 (1808) p. 480 (cf., There is this general distinction between contemporary history and all other history, —that the former is a witness, the latter a judge. The opinions of a contemporary author on the events which he records, are only then authority, when the impression made on a bystander happens to be a material part of the case; nor is this any exception to the maxim, that his business is to testify, not to lecture. On facts, however, he is paramount evidence; and that, not only in the age immediately succeeding him, but also, which is generally forgotten, to the latest times. The modern historian, who consults original authorities through the-medium of some later predecessor, descends from the character of a judge to that of a faithful reporter of decisions.)

^"Security Council Condemns, 'In Strongest Terms', Terrorist Attacks on the United States". United Nations. 12 September 2001. Retrieved 11 September 2006. The Security Council today, following what it called yesterday's "horrifying terrorist attacks" in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, unequivocally condemned those acts, and expressed its deepest sympathy and condolences to the victims and their families and to the people and Government of the United States.

^"Bin Laden claims responsibility for 9/11". CBC News. 29 October 2004. Retrieved 11 January 2009. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden appeared in a new message aired on an Arabic TV station Friday night, for the first time claiming direct responsibility for the 2001 attacks against the United States.

^ abExtensive statistics, many indicating the growing world disparity, are included in the available report, press releases, Excel tables and Powerpoint slides. See The World Distribution of Household Wealth. James B. Davies, Susanna Sandstrom, Anthony Shorrocks, and Edward N. Wolff. 5 December 2006.

^There are many different methods, in conventional and unconventional propulsion systems. Each method has drawbacks and advantages, and spacecraft propulsion is an active area of research. However, most spacecraft today are propelled by forcing a gas from the back/rear of the vehicle at very high speed through a supersonic de Laval nozzle. This sort of engine is called a rocket engine.